love this exaltation
by puertoricanjane
Summary: "You're laughing," says Rude, deadpan, eyebrows angled slightly upwards, and all in all no help whatsoever in stemming it.


"You're laughing," says Rude, deadpan, eyebrows angled slightly upwards, and all in all no help whatsoever in stemming it.

Elena just cracks up harder, one hand coming up to her mouth as she rocks back on her heels.

Rude waits her out because he's an angel. A tall, imposing, monosyllabic angel, who she absolutely wouldn't blame for leaving after she was - _they_ were - and then she starts laughing out of nowhere. But he's still here, staring down his sunglasses at her, quietly waiting her out, and that definitely counts for something. Now if only she could stop laughing, because that counts for something less.

"I'm really, really sorry." Her voice is muffled; Elena lowers her hand so she's not speaking through her fingers. Her mouth's still twitching though. She tries to press it into a line and fails, mouth tugging up even as her eyes dart down. "Timing's never really been my strong suit, huh?"

Rude doesn't say anything but then she doesn't expect him too. Man of few words and all that, and she remembers how it used to unnerve her, how quiet he was. Elena's never been good at silence - her skin gets tight and words trip off her tongue, so silly and incomprehensible she wishes she'd never spoken at all, that she could pick up the silence lying in jagged glass at her feet. It's judgement she's afraid of, really; she can feel its weight bearing down on her, heavy and oppressive. Thinks that if she can fill a silence quick enough she can stave off the inevitable - avoid being found wanting - but all it does is exacerbate the process.

Rude changed that. Rude changed a lot of things, she thinks, in ways she would've never anticipated the first time he leveled her with a gaze and she almost started squirming on the spot. With him, she learned silence isn't always something to fear; that it can be warm, comfortable, and Elena slides a hand to his wrist while still full of that feeling. He could easily unwind it from her grasp - she's seen him punch through monsters - but he lets her and something settles and swells up in her all at once, just from feeling the thrum of Rude's pulse under her fingers.

Then her eyes flick up, meet Rude's shadowed gaze, and Elena starts laughing all over again.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" She's bent over, wheezing, both arms wrapped around her stomach. She ends up apologizing in the direction of his shoes. Only looks back up once she's gotten her breathing under control but you can still hear the laughter in her voice. "It's just—I look down and see my hand on yours and they're just so tiny, right? My fingers. And you—you and your hands are huge. You're like a million inches tall, and yes, Rude, I'm well aware of how hyperbolic I'm being, you can stop doing that thing with your eyebrows."

This time it isn't his eyebrows inching up and it's honestly mesmerizing, watching the right side of Rude's mouth tug up fully.

_I did that_, Elena thinks, as she does every time, heart stuttering in her chest. _Me._

"And when I was leaning up before—tip toes is just a sad reality of life when you're as short as I am, okay, but to reach your mouth I went beyond tip toes. So, um, hence the laughing. In your mouth," she adds, unnecessarily, before what she's just said hits her. Her eyes widen and she sucks in an embarrassed breath.

Stopping while she was ahead, Elena reflects, has also never been one of her strong suits. But it's a testament to how comfortable she is with Rude that she's only slightly mortified. Elena can't imagine being in this situation with Tseng without wanting to die. That doesn't stop her from biting the inside of her cheek, cursing her mouth for getting ahead of her brain.

She's pretending the ground is the most interesting thing she's ever seen when Rude brings a hand to her chin, tilting her face up. His sunglasses are gone, tucked away in his front pocket, and all there is now is the skip in her lungs and the brown of his eyes.

"Wow," Elena says, already short of breath before Rude's fingers decide to skim over her jaw line. She swallows, mouth dry. Her heart pulses a staccato beat in her ears. "No wonder you wear those all the time. They're a lethal weapon. I know license to kill jokes are so passé considering our line of work but trust me, Rude, your eyes are certified-"

"Elena," Rude says, the way only he can, a wealth of feeling wrapped up in one word.

His head dips down to meet hers, their breaths mingling, and this time when they kiss laughter is the last thing on Elena's mind. She just clenches her fingers in his collar and holds on for good life.


End file.
